Warning: This review contains spoilers.

(REVIEW) “Exhibiting Forgiveness” does a great job of honestly wrestling with the hardest questions around forgiveness, religious and otherwise, even if not all the elements quite come together. The film is beautiful for its vulnerability and willingness to wrestle with both the topic of forgiveness and how it intersects with religion and trauma.

Forgiveness is widely considered one of the most difficult things to do in life — particularly when it comes to the relationship between parents and children. This is probably why so many films deal with the idea of reconciling with one’s parents, including movies like “Big Fish” to “I Can Only Imagine” to “Avengers: Endgame.”

First-time director Titus Kaphar is not trying to hide the “autobiography” part in his semi-autobiographical film “Exhibiting Forgiveness” — a movie about a painter trying to reconcile with his father.

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This is what Kaphar said in an interview with Art News:

“What you see being created in the film is actually just a continuation of the work that I’ve been doing. The script is not rooted in some other kind of fictional experience. The script is rooted in my own life. … [T]he project started with me writing just my personal experiences as a means of trying to share something with my sons about my life, and it evolved into what became a script and a screenplay. As a screenplay, there were certain details that were changed for continuity, fluidity and making sure the film is not five hours long.”

Like the film’s protagonist, Kaphar is an artist by trade. Called one of today’s most “closely watched” artists, he is the co-founder of NXTHVN, a nonprofit in New Haven, Conn., built on mentoring artists through fellowship and programs. The film uses his own original works as centerpieces both for the film and the character’s journey. 

With that in mind, it’s meaningful that his film focuses on forgiveness. The story follows artist and father Tarrell (played by André Holland) when he discovers that his abusive father (John Earl Jerks) is back in his mother’s (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) life. She deeply wants them to reconcile. Encouraged by his wife (Andra Day) and brother, he confronts his father about their past to see if forgiveness is possible.

As a film, “Exhibiting Forgiveness” is one I would recommend seeing. The movie often makes good use of its artist motif. Tarrell paints many beautiful works of art, and the way the shots are framed often looks like a painting, too. In fact, many of the scenes that don’t feature paintings also have a painting-like quality that is gorgeous to look at, particularly early on in the film.

The characters, dialogue and acting are all very strong. André Holland plays the upright but tortured protagonist with the right mix of stoic decency and believable vulnerability. James Earl Jelks gives a moving performance as Tarrell’s father La’Ron of someone who can be both performatively aggressive while broken and desperate. The standout is Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Tarrell’s mother Joyce. She is simultaneously joyful and tough, righteous and also has feet of clay. 

Easily the best scene is when Joyce and La’Ron discuss why he needs to try to reconcile with Tarrell. La’Ron wants to give up, but Joyce angrily reminds him how often he let Tarrell down and how often she forgave him. She admonishes him that relationships are hard and to keep trying. It’s a long, continuous take that lets us sit in the moment without catching our breath like it’s a single moving painting. 

Perhaps the film’s greatest strength overall is how it wrestles through all of the hardest parts of forgiveness. Practically every difficult barrier to forgiveness is addressed at least once in the movie, from justice, to license to sin again, to whether that means reconciliation. Moreover, it does so within the context of Christianity specifically.

Joyce tells Tarrell: “The Bible says if you don’t forgive others of your past sins, then you can’t be forgiven. That’s The Bible, son.”

This is hard teaching, but it is in the Bible. Jesus says it explicitly in the gospels. It’s so explicit that when Tarrell wants to push back, he doesn’t on her interpretation. He pushes back that God is worth following, by bringing up the command to sacrifice Isaac. His mother doesn’t have an answer to this, simply pleading with him not to blaspheme as he ignores her. It’s something he will come to regret later.

Christianity and the church are portrayed elsewhere as vehicles for change and reconciliation. Tarrell’s father gets clean and put together because his brother puts him in a home that makes going to church and recovery meetings a condition of staying there. When he is clean, people point out the fact that he’s going to church now as evidence of how much he’s changed.

Forgiveness as a value

Forgiveness is such a pervasive value we don’t often think about how revolutionary it was in The West when Christianity introduced it. The late Dr. Tim Keller makes the point in his book “Forgive” that forgiveness was a relational revolution because it reconciled both “truth” and “reconciliation”. Prior to Christianity, there was nothing quite like how we understand “forgiveness".Classicist David Konstant wrote “The modern concept of forgiveness … did not exist in antiquity.” Author Charles Griswold wrote that “forgiveness is not seen as a virtue among the Greek philosophers.” 

Instead, Aristotle promoted a view of “pardon” for when “someone does a wrong action because of conditions of a sort that overstrain human nature, and that no one can endure.” As noted American pastor Tim Keller noted, “This is ‘making allowances,’ not forgiveness.”

Forgiveness was a seismic innovation of Christianity, saying, “I will completely know exactly what wrong was done and also welcome you back.” This meant — for maybe the first time in human history — truth and reconciliation didn’t have to come at the expense of one another. This is one way that, as the John 1:17 teaches, “grace and truth” came through Jesus.

But “excusing” often creeps back in when people try to make arguments for forgiveness. And “Exhibiting Forgiveness” portrays that as well. Both La’Ron and Joyce partly argue that Tarrell should forgive based on excusing what he’s done.

Joyce says, “He gave me you, Tarrell. He was my first love and he gave me you.”

But, according to La’Ron, “Look at everything you’ve got, Tarrell: Your art, your family. My wrong taught you to do right. You need to thank God for that.” Tarrell rightly rejects this, scoffing at him “Me watching you put your hands on my mother made me a better father? And now you want me to thank God for that?”

Need for forgiveness in a world of sin

Another argument given for forgiveness is the fact that all of us are sinners; we all need forgiveness. This is brought up by La’Ron to Tarrell: “Everybody’s got flaws. Who ain’t got flaws? You got flaws, Tarrell. Ain’t you got flaws?”

Tarrell pushes back, saying there’s a difference between flaws and evil.

“We ain’t talking about flaws,” he says. “A flaw’s an accident. … You don’t get to go around abusing your family and calling yourself a good man!”

This resonates. Obviously, there is a difference between flaws and abuse. And yet, Christianity has historically maintained that the difference is thinner than many of us would like to admit. Paul repeatedly warns Christians not to turn away others who seek God’s grace — even though they see themselves as worse than them — since they are also under judgment and only have God’s favor because of grace too.

Still, this logic has been attacked (even by some Christians) as a license to abuse victims and get away with it (another reflection in Keller’s book “Forgive”). The hardest part about forgiveness is giving the perpetrator a chance to hurt someone again, while asking victims to shoulder that responsibility. Churches and Christians often find difficulty figuring out how to balance those. 

The film gives many examples of this. At the very beginning, La’Ron’s brother takes him in. But his wife demands he kick him out because every time he comes back he steals something. Joyce acknowledges that she kept taking La’Ron back. Every time she did, he betrayed her again. Tarrell tearfully confesses to his mother that his life only became bearable when she finally kicked him out of the house.

Forgiveness releases you from the burden of hate that’s so destructive in us. But it doesn’t remove punishment or require reconciliation with the one who was harmed. This was a big theme on our “Overthinkers” podcast episode, where we discussed forgiveness with author Karen Laing. The data on the benefits of forgiveness to our mental health is pretty overwhelming. This is the conclusion that Tarrell eventually comes to. He sees his bitterness toward his father is destroying him, which is, in turn, hurting his family. He decides to forgive his father, but not let him back into his life.

The Bible’s treatment is far more complicated. After all, when Jesus's disciples ask how often they should forgive someone, he tells them the parable of the king who relieves his servant of a debt in Matthew 18:21-35). It tells us nothing about that person “letting go” of his anger or resentment. Instead, it focuses entirely on forgiveness as relieving him of the consequences of his debt. Likewise, Jesus came to forgive us of our sins, which meant relieving us of the consequences of hell and restoring our relationship with God.

We see this in “Exhibiting Forgiveness” as well. The only reason La’Ron is able to eventually turn his life around is that people like his brother gave him more chances. This is where Tarrell stumbles most in coming up with compelling counterarguments. People tell him that La’Ron has changed. While he sometimes tries to deny it, it’s tough. Because it’s clear that, while he’s not perfect, he has changed for the better. 

So how does one reconcile this? Probably the best explanation I’ve seen comes from Keller’s commentaries on Romans called “Romans for You.” In it, he points out that Paul uses multiple metaphors for what it means to be free from sin. But it typically means being brought into a relationship like the slave of a master or a son to a father. You are welcomed back into a relationship, but on God’s terms, where he still has authority over you.

This means that while forgiveness may require some openness to reconciliation on the terms of the one offering forgiveness. God welcomes us back into a relationship, but it’s one He defines. It is defined as a father-son relationship, where he can discipline us for not following his standards. To be reconciled to Him is to be reconciled into this relationship. To reject this part of the relationship is to reject the relationship, and therefore be subject to removal from the relationship.

Interestingly, we see this exact thing in the relationships that create redemption in La’Ron. When La’Ron’s brother takes him in, he does it without demanding change from him. But when his wife forces him to kick him out, he sends him to a home that makes him attend church in order to clean up his act. It’s in that environment where he actually grows. And in the reconciled relationship La’Ron has with Joyce, she makes it clear — very bluntly — that he must reconcile with his son as a condition of their relationship.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t allow most of these ideas to build on each other. Much of the time it will bring up the issues, and then just lets them sit there. Then it brings up another issue without putting them in conversation with each other. So the discussion often feels more like it’s running in circles than coming together toward a deeper insight or revelation.

Artistically, the film feels like it peters out. As the film goes on, there is a failure of deeper meaning to what we’re experiencing. This comes to a head in the film’s conclusion, where Tarrell tells his father he forgives him but doesn’t want him in his life anymore. It falls flat. It’s just words. We don’t see any actions to back it up, nor any discernible visual motif. As it result, it rings false. It’s just more words by Tarrell like at the beginning of the movie where he protests to everyone that he’s “fine” and “moved on” even when it's clear he’s not.

Movies can be tricky. A painting you get everything in a single image, but film is primarily a medium of bringing things together. We see movement because disconnected frames come together to give the illusion of motion. We see different shots and we connect them together in time, space and story. Catharsis in a painting comes from the intersection of everything in a single image. In a movie, it comes with the intersection of millions of images and the ideas they evoke. In this film, there are a lot of great images and ideas, but they could have held together a lot better.

Had the movie weaved its pieces together into a better whole, it could have been a true masterpiece. As it is, it’s well worth the exhibition, anyway.  

Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.